Welcome to Kirby's Computers of Maquoketa Iowa

Here you will find
information and software to teach you how to be more efficient, get more done,
perform tasks you may not know how to do and keep your computer safe from
infection and preventable hardware failures. Be sure to check back often
because things are always being updated, especially custom software written
right here.

Unfortunately I cannot take recommendations for software you
would like to have written as my time is limited, but I have already written
some useful programs, some of which may save you a trip to my shop by helping
you to automatically remove many common viral infections from your computer and
the settings they leave behind which leave your computer unable to connect to
the Internet or run certain programs or program types. Some of these
programs are in a final useful state and are unlikely to be updated often, if
ever. Others may be constantly evolving and new version may be available
often. Be sure to read any special instructions and warnings listed with
the software as there may be important information there telling you how to get
the programs to work.

Windows 10 free upgrade has ended

The upgrade to Windows 10 is no longer free. Your
computer may still be upgradeable for free under a couple of circumstances.
First, if your copy was reserved, but didn't install, you can still upgrade for
free once the issues are fixed. Second, if you did upgrade but then went
back, you can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free. As of the time of this
writing there were still some technical ways around this, allowing you to
upgrade Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10 free of charge, even if your copy was not
already reserved.

NOTICE OF WINDOWS XP END OF LIFE (EOL)

Windows XP support ended on April 8th, 2014. What this
means for Windows XP users is that Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP and
there will be no more updated for Windows XP. What it also means is that
other companies are going to be dropping support for Windows XP in the coming
months as well. Sooner or later you will no longer be able to buy a
printer or download a program that works with Windows XP.

Should I upgrade to a newer version of Windows?

Definitely not. A newer version of Windows will be a
very expensive upgrade and most computers which currently have Windows XP are
not powerful enough to handle a newer version of Windows easily.
Installing, say, Windows 7 on your computer will cause it to slow down
considerably and as Windows 7 updates keep coming in every month the speed will
decrease quickly. You will have spent potentially a couple of hundred
dollars buying and installing the new version of Windows only to find that your
computer has become so slow that it's virtually useless.

The news makes it sound like using my computer is
dangerous. Is it?

A little, yes, and more and more so each day. As long as
you keep up-to-date security software, don't use Adobe Flash Player or Internet
Explorer, keep your browser up to date and either keep Java updated or uninstall
it, you should be relatively safe for a short while longer. However,
updates for Google Chrome have ended and Mozilla Firefox is on the Extended
Support Release for Windows XP, meaning that there will soon be no updates for
that either. That means that very soon you will not be able to get an
up-to-date browser at all.

So what should I do?

You should consider replacing it soon. By the end of
2017 Kirby's Computers is going to have reduced support for Windows XP systems,
though they will still be supported as long as there is a demand. However,
it is getting more difficult to find drivers which work with Windows XP.
This means that newer hardware such as printers simply will not work.
Microsoft has even gone so far as to stop supporting the newest Intel processors
on Windows 7. They are pushing hard to get everyone to Windows 10 because
it is a constant source of advertising revenue for them.

What is the conclusion?

You should probably not upgrade your current computer.
Instead you should consider replacing it with a new, or at the very least a
newer used computer. Upgrading the operating system on your computer
(Windows) will cause it to slow down considerably as the newest version of
Windows is made for the newest hardware and doesn't run nearly as well (not
nearly as fast) on older hardware.

Why not upgrade?

There are several reasons I don't recommend upgrading a
computer more than 2 or, on the outside, 3 years old. One I already
mentioned. If you upgrade only the operating system it will slow your
computer down. But what if you make it faster too? Computer
technology moves fast. Specifically, processor technology changes quickly.
The number and layout of the pins on a processor is known as the "pinout".
This pinout changes all the time. Intel released its first third
generation processors late in 2011, it's first 4th generation processors late in
2013. The pinout of the two processors is different. This means that
to replace the processor in your computer with a new one you have to also
replace the motherboard. In some cases you would also have to replace the
memory, and we're already talking about replacing the operating system.
These are some of the most expensive parts of a computer. On top of that
you have the labor involved with replacing all of those things. You end up
paying half the price of a new computer or better, getting usually a 1 year
warranty on the new parts only and actually paying more in the long run because
there is no labor cost with building a new computer. Upgrading your
current computer is generally a bad deal for the customer. A computer
store can easily make more profit from the customer upgrading than they can just
selling a new one because of the labor costs, and they have less liability
because of the reduced warranty and the increased chance that a failure will be
caused by one of the components not replaced (which is completely out of
warranty), potentially voiding the warranty on all the new parts. Yes, it
costs more to buy a new computer than to upgrade your current computer with
same-quality parts, but when you break it down you actually get far less value
for the money that you spend.